Migrants pay to get shipped out of Britain

Many will be astonished, as well as relieved, to learn that illegal immigrants are abandoning the UK.

Panorama reporter Paul Kenyon

The foreigners, some of them on the run from police, are hidden in the back of lorries and transported to France.

They then journey to other parts of Europe instead of risking being booted back to their homeland.

It is feared that dangerous criminals are escaping justice in this way.

The back-to-front trafficking business, exposed on BBC1’s Panorama last night, shows ministers can not know how many migrants are arriving in or leaving the country.

Panorama reporter Paul Kenyon went undercover as a Moldovan working illegally in Britain with no passport who wanted to return home to his sick wife.

He secretly recorded meeting an Indian fixer called “Munga”, who boasted he could sneak groups of illegals across the Channel in a truck for £1,500 per person.

Mr Kenyon said: “This is a trade in human cargo of a very different kind from the one the UK Border Agency is used to.

“Many will be astonished, as well as relieved, to learn that illegal immigrants are abandoning the UK.

“It suggests attempts to crack down on failed asylum seekers, as well as the downturn in our economy and subsequent lack of work here, could at last be having an effect.”

Many illegal immigrants are offered cash by the Government to leave the UK, as a forced deportation costs taxpayers more £11,000.

Immigration Minister Mark Harper said: “We make sure people are fingerprinted so we can check to see if people have entered the EU in another country. If they have, we can return them back to the country where they fi rst entered.”